Tag: philosophy as a way of life

Stoic Week 2014: Everything You Need to Know

Stoic Week 2014 is an online and international event taking place from Monday 24th to Sunday 30th November. This is its third year. Anyone can participate by following the daily instructions in the Stoic Week 2014 Handbook, which will be published online. You will be following the Stoic practices of philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus, for seven days, and discussing the experience of adapting them for modern living with other participants in our online forums. The aims of the course are to introduce the philosophy so that you can see how it might be useful in your own life and to measure its potential therapeutic effectiveness. More about the Stoic Week online course below.

In addition to taking part in Stoic Week online, if you live in and around London, you can book your place for the Stoicism Today – Stoic Week Event.

The London Day is Sold Out

This is being held at Queen Mary, University of London (Mile End campus) on November 29th. There are 300 places for the event. This is the biggest annual gathering of people interested in Stoicism. The day will feature talks by experts on Stoicism, life stories by those who have practised it and a whole range of workshops to choose from (including on Stoicism, nature and the environment; Cultivating a wise relationship with technology; Stoicism at work; Lives transformed: personal accounts of Stoic healing; Guided Stoic meditation; Stoicism and love; Stoic ethics under pressure). There will also be discussion on how Stoicism is being used in schools, UK prisons, the army and business. In addition to the Stoicism Today team (Chris Gill, John Sellars, Gill Garratt, Tim LeBon, Jules Evans, Patrick Ussher, Gabriele Galluzzo and Donald Robertson – read more about its members here), special guests will include Prof. Angie Hobbs (Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield), Nikki Cameron who runs the philosophy club at Low Moss prison and Mark Hardie, former Marine and resilience coach.

To get an idea of the day, you can see a video of last year’s London event here.

More about Stoic Week 2014 & The Online Course

About Stoicism: Stoicism was first practised in the Graeco-Roman world in around 300 BC. At the core of Stoicism is the idea that virtue, or strength of character, is the most important thing in life. They focussed on ‘following nature’ by perfecting the rational nature of the human being, through cultivating wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, and also on bringing to fruition the social nature of the human being, by aiming to excel in our social roles, whether familial or in society at large. Stoicism, therefore, is simultaneously a philosophy of inner strength and outer excellence.

About the course: The course guides you through all the basic ideas of Stoicism. Each day has its own theme, exercises to practise, reflections from original Stoic texts to consider. It has been written by the Stoicism Today team, an interdisciplinary group of academics and psychotherapists. You are also encouraged to take wellbeing surveys before and after the week, so that we can measure the course’s effectiveness.

You can find audio resources (guided meditations to download) for the course here.

Registration: The course is not held on the Stoicism Today website but on its sister website, modernstoicism.com. Please register for the course on that website, and fill in the pre-week questionnaires the weekend before Stoic Week commences, and again once Stoic Week is over. You can register now by following these two steps:

You will receive an automatic email with further instructions, which are also available once you enrol on the modernstoicism website.

The Stoic Week 2014 Handbook is now available on the modernstoicism website.

You can also download it here and follow the week without registering on modernstoicism.combut in order to take part in the experiment, and discuss Stoicism with others following the course, you are encouraged to register on the modernstoicism website.

Please note that due to high levels of traffic the modernstoicism.com site has been experiencing some down-time. If you can’t get through, please try again later. We are working to resolve these technical difficulties.

If you would prefer to take part in the course without registering on the modern stoicism website, you can do so. Follow the instructions here.

Want to share your experiences during the week? There will be very active discussion boards during Stoic Week on the course website. You can also post your reflections on the Stoicism Facebook group.

What were the results of last year’s study? Last year, around 2,400 people took part in Stoic Week worldwide. Our findings supported the view that Stoicism is helpful. Participants reported a 14% improvement in life satisfaction, a 9% increase in positive emotions (joy increased the most of all emotions, whilst optimism increased by 18%) and an 11% decrease in negative emotions. The findings also supported the view that Stoicism not only increases well-being but also enhances virtue – 56% of participants gave themselves a mark of 80% or more when asked whether it had made them a better person and made them wiser.

What else can I look forward to during Stoic Week? On the Stoicism Today blog during Stoic Week, there will be personal testimonies of how Stoicism has been useful in people’s lives, as well as articles tackling various stereotypes of Stoicism, and reflections by prominent authors on Stoicism and its uses in the modern world. Get in touch if you would like to share reflections on how Stoicism has been helpful in your life.

A 20 minute talk by Christopher Gill, professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter, on the philosophical project and aims of Marcus Aurelius.

Questions covered include: what is at the core of Marcus philosophical project in writing his meditations? And how ‘Stoic’ was Marcus Aurelius? philosophical method? Includes discussion of key passages for understanding the aims of the Meditations as a whole.